Manipulating the motion of large neutral molecules

TL;DR

This paper reviews methods for controlling the motion of large, complex molecules such as amino acids and peptides, highlighting their potential for studying molecular properties and fundamental physics.

Contribution

It discusses various approaches for manipulating large molecules and explores prospects for state- and conformer-selected molecular beams.

Findings

Potential for studying molecular properties using focused beams

Feasibility of conformer-specific manipulation

Applications in fundamental physics research

Abstract

Large molecules have complex potential-energy surfaces with many local minima. They exhibit multiple stereo-isomers, even at very low temperatures. In this paper we discuss the different approaches for the manipulation of the motion of large and complex molecules, like amino acids or peptides, and the prospects of state- and conformer-selected, focused, and slow beams of such molecules for studying their molecular properties and for fundamental physics studies. Accepted for publication in Faraday Disc. 142 (2009), DOI: 10.1039/b820045a